This paper develops your understanding of the social, cultural, economic, political and environmental factors that shape how health is thought about and practiced. Moving beyond a consideration of health as the 'absence of disease', the paper encourages you to think about health holistically. It provides a broad overview of key policies, frameworks and models of health and the conceptual tools necessary to assess their use in relation to different communities, populations, and individuals. Contemporary health issues linked to Te Ao Māori, the outdoors, obesity, disability and mental health will be explored. This is a foundation paper that begins to assist you in developing the skills and knowledge needed to enhance the health of people in communities.

This paper is taught exclusively online over a 12 week period of A semester using a combination of e-learning approaches including lectures, discussion forums, independent tasks, and readings analysis. A regular online presence and active engagement in the weekly tasks and topics in the paper from the first week of semester is required and will be essential to completion of the paper requirements.

The details of the learning activities for each week will be provided in the online Moodle site for the paper. You will be advised in week one what the regular time for the new material for each week to be uploaded will be to allow for your forward planning.

There are three assessments designed to act as evidence of your learning in this paper. It is highly recommended that you enter these into your diary and plan ahead for their completion and submission.

Please note that any announcements regarding general requirements and assessment that are not contained in this paper outline will be posted through Moodle (as an Announcement or through the weekly update of learning activities). You need to ensure that your default email address is correct in Moodle, as the site will forward these messages to you at this address.

This course will run exclusively online throughout trimester A. There are no face-to-face meetings or classes for the course, rather learning activities will be posted online at a standard time each week (the time will be confirmed in the first week of semester).

If you have a question about anything to do with the paper, you should first consider whether the question is something that may concern others or is seeking clarification about assignments. If it is, please use the Q& A forum on Moodle. If your question is private to you alone, please use the Private conversation with Lecturer link.

There are some very useful online resources aimed at helping you achieve at Student Learning: http://www.waikato.ac.nz/students/student-learning

There are also some very helpful and simple videos on how to use the library more effectively on the Virtual Reference Desk in Moodle and on the front of the library web page.